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In July 1912, Wilhelm Stekel writes to Sigmund Freud, “You know how much you mean to me and the part I play in your history. In the history of psychoanalysis our names are closely linked and I remain the prophet, you the Allah” (p 185)! In another note his flowery language seems to plead for some small amount of recognition, “In the rich garland of blossoming flowers with which you decorated your friend Ferenczi's head I found a little violet I claim to be mine. Not in public! God forbid. Just to call to your own mind, which seems to show a tendency to forget me” (p 180). Clinical thinking can help us speculate on the meaning of these comments: Stekel as Freud's promoter, disseminating his ideas and linking himself with the master's greatness; Stekel seeking just a modicum of acknowledgement, jealous of Ferenczi's crown of garlands, while he must satisfy himself with only a small violet. Don't forget about me, he seems to beg. These letters reveal a man in search of reassurance, recognition and approval from Freud. Juxtapose these words with the sentiment in Freud's comment: “I committed two crimes in my life: I drew attention to cocaine and I introduced Stekel to psychoanalysis” (p 25).
The stormy relationship between Freud and Jung is well known, and Adler, Ferenczi and Rank had major rifts with Freud as well. Yet Wilhelm Stekel, a man who wrote prolifically, whom Freud considered a popularizer of psychoanalysis who was instrumental in establishing the Wednesday night group in 1902 (later became the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society), who thought of himself as a true Freudian, has virtually been obliterated from psychoanalysis. Typing his name into the psychoanalytic electronic publishing search engine yields no matches and yet Wilhelm Stekel has over 300 publications to his name. What happened to Wilhelm Stekel and what can be learned about the ways in which the field of psychoanalysis developed from its earliest days?
Jaap Bos and Leendert Groenendijk, the authors, ex